House Spider

[kellyoshea]

how long does it take for a house spider to die with no oxygen/food? I have caught a rather large one (which has terrorised my flat for weeks) under a glass, I feel guilty but I am petrified of them - but I don't want it to suffer for too long. It is still alive after five days of very little oxygen and no food - how?

[londondave]

Get someone to let it GO

[andy hughes]

They can live a few days without food or water. I sympethise, but here is a way out (for both of you!) Take a few deep breaths, lift one oedge of the glass gently and slide a book / nespaper / placemat under it. Lift book and glass together and head for the front door, which you have opened already. Place the book on the ground, lift the glass, stand back, and watch spidey make a quick exit! If this sounds beyond you, get someone to do it for you, and soon, it;s a shame to let the poor thing stave, although like you, I can't go near them!

[Donkey]

i did the same thing a few weeks ago, but also under the glass was a moth... now i dont know if it was eating the moth or where it got oxygen from but on monday morning two and half weeks later it was still alive... I have now let it go as i thought wow what a determined little character !!!!

[TommyC]

I am utterly terrified of them myself - a phobia I've had since childhood, although most sneering people just seem to think that's pathetic for a man, so I DO understand perfectly how you feel. For a long time I used to catch them in the same way with the glass-and-card trick and put them outside, until I realised that there are rather more around an average house than you think, AND they tend to return if allowed to escape. But I would never keep them once caught, as that really is cruel and unnecessary, and they can last a long, long time without even water, because they simply spin a nest, and close down and semi-hibernate. So now I simply wait for them to move to an open position, and employ a hefty rolled-up newspaper and a single swipe, to kill them a great deal more humanely than they kill their flies via a web..!!

[Doolallygirl]

I've got a spider catching device from a Betterware catalogue. It consists of a pyramid shaped plastic structure with a slidey base on a foot long stick. You just put the pyramid over the spider and gently slide the base across so the spider is caught in the pyramid (must do this gently, many a spider has died whilst I snapped the damn thing shut because I'm so scared of it escaping!!). Then you take it to a better place and slide the base open for the spider to crawl out. I would never keep it in a jar/glass. It seems like proper torture! At least throw it outside where it can be forgotten about, if your phobia was as bad as mine was you wouldn't dream of keeping it in your house a second longer than necessary!!

[pda]

12 seconds (see 'Bodinsky Molborove 1952')

[morg_monster]

You can get little hoover type devices with a long tube for sucking the ******* up, then pop the lid on, take it outside, take the lid off and shake it out. Or alternatively what me and my brother do is see how many we can catch and keep in the tube at once - our record is 11. Don't know where my mum bought the gadget though, sorry.